Snapshot with Bill Nikolai If you were to meet your 20-year-old self, what advice would you give him? "Think carefully about the consequences of your choices (and even the decisions you don’t take), but allow yourself to be impetuous and spontaneous. Dream about goals and how you might achieve them, but be willing to re-assess and take side trips and detours. Work at acquiring, developing and expressing a sense of humour, but not at the expense of others. Go lightly on the fart jokes. Develop and nurture relationships." Who or what has influenced you the most? And why? "My wife, Linda. Not just because we’ve been together almost 30 years and I continue to try to score brownie points… She works incredibly hard at her job, and always has workrelated stories that make me realize two things: 1) her empathy and work ethic know no bounds (putting me to shame) and 2) I’m so lucky to be in relatively good health while so many people are valiantly – and literally – engaging in life-and-death struggles." What does courage mean to you? "Wow. Courage means to do something in the face of personal fear, adversity, and the possibility of negative consequences. In my opinion, however, true courage is something that occurs primarily in the realm of supporting others." What does success mean to you? "That, perhaps, is the toughest question. Taking responsibility and acting accordingly. It certainly doesn’t mean being wealthy. Living a life that makes a positive difference to those around you would be my main criterion." 8
INSPIRED SENIOR LIVING
The thrill of the chase ultimately isn’t what motivates Bill. For nearly 30 years, his wife, Linda, has been his driving force and inspiration. “She is truly a compassionate and empathetic person who demonstrably cares about many people, both in her personal life and professionally. She works incredibly hard at her job as a leukemia and bone marrow transplant nurse.” The work Linda does with people who are fighting for their lives reminds Bill how lucky he is to be in relatively good health. She also happens to be his skiing partner and SCUBA buddy. She grounds him, gives him wings and goes for a dip with him. Red Bull never stood a chance. Not a fan of the term “adrenaline junkie,” Bill’s the kind of guy who throws down the gauntlet judiciously and with forethought. Throwing caution to the wind cautiously is part of what allows him to continue throwing without rotator cuff issues. “I like to do things that may seem risky, but it’s not without a fair bit of consideration as to my limits, as well as benefit versus downside,” says Bill. That doesn’t mean once the decision to play is made, he doesn’t play hard. “With skiing, I used to love the airtime, the jumps and drops. The joints aren’t as resilient as they used to be, so I don’t ‘fly’ on my skis like I did when I was in my twenties (a skier since age five). I still love speed. I hit 100 km/h recently, as measured by my iPhone.” Not to mention flying like a bird. “It’s tempting to acquiesce,” says Bill, “to listen to the infomercials and the body’s insistence. When it comes right down to it, though, capitulation is not an option. Keep the RPMs near redline and pray you don’t blow the engine or vaporize all the octane before your destination. Because to give in and throttle back is to hasten the decline.” Pedal-to-the-metal mode does take its toll, though, and time ravages indiscriminately, if without malice. Bill is philoWWW.SENIORLIVINGMAG.COM
sophical about the inevitable. A nagging hip has become his Achilles’ heel. “I’m reminded by a retail flyer – much to my dismay – that I’m now eligible for a 20 per cent seniors’ discount on replenishment of my ibuprofen stockpile, something welcomed by my bottom but eschewed by my head,” jokes Bill. We often watch someone like Bill and admire his living life on the edge, as it were, the courage necessary to take the risks he does to reap those rewards. But Bill downplays the idea of courage in this sense and suggests that a kind of courage within the context of caring for others is a much richer version. “Sports endeavours – whether extreme or otherwise – may require some variation of ‘courage’ (I’m really not sure what to call it), but they lack the necessary components of altruism and selflessness that would put them anywhere near the same league, as say, for example, Oskar Schindler’s efforts to protect Jews.” Professionally, Bill is a card-carrying actor, and a claim to fame was that he was MacGyver’s stand in. Yes, that MacGyver. Later, when MacGyver became Stargate military man Jack O’Neill, he stood for him, too. Stand-ins mostly stand, unless they’re sitting. They hold the place of the actor for purposes of blocking and lighting, basically setting up the shot in the film and television industries. Bill is friends with MacGyver and O’Neill a.k.a. Richard Dean Anderson. It’s not a claim to fame, just another fact. Though the acting bug never goes away, it lies dormant under the skin waiting for its host to present with the itch to get back in front of the camera. For now, though, Bill is asymptomatic. Practical about the prospects of a life on the silver screen, Bill went back to school at age 50. So, what does a guy do who, in a single year, has run 1,725 km, biked 2,200 km, hiked and walked an additional 167 km, and gained more than the equivalent of Mt. Everest in elevation? Bill became a librarian, of course. Oh, and that year he also knocked out 49,750 push-ups, 70,550 crunches, 34,160 dips, and 7,671 chin-ups. Seems Bill has a bit of a cataloguing problem. This stats freak laments that all that work was slightly